Broadband key to Tassie's future

May 19, 2009

Lindsay Tanner blogs exclusively for BusinessDay

Yesterday I travelled to northern Tasmania to meet with business and local government leaders about the Budget. Together with local MP, Jodie Campbell, I met with a wide range of key players in northern Tasmania’s economy.

A fair proportion of the discussions focused on specific local initiatives, such as the major upgrade of the Launceston Hospital announced in the Budget. However, the main recurring theme was a national initiative, the Government’s plan for a superfast national broadband network. The Government plans to start construction of the network in Tasmania, commencing within months.

For as long as I can remember, Tassie has been regarded as something of a poor cousin by people on the mainland. With lower incomes, a smaller size and numerous genetic jokes, people have tended to look down on Tasmania.

Things are now changing. Whereas Tassie was once the poor relation of the Australian economy, it’s on track to gradually becoming one of our success stories.

Why? Because underlying structural factors that used to disadvantage Tasmania, or advantage other parts of the country, are changing.

In the past, Tassie’s small population and relative isolation, cold climate and lack of big private sector employers all held the State back. The division between north and south didn’t help either.

Things are different in the emerging economy of the future. Small population means limited congestion and infrastructure problems compared with the rest of Australia. Lack of big companies means greater reliance on smaller, nimbler businesses relying on innovation rather than scale. And Tasmania’s stunning landscape and reasonable accessibility to Melbourne make it a very attractive place to live, particularly given much lower land and housing costs. The traditional constraint, not enough well paid jobs, is starting to diminish.

Against this background of changing structural dynamics, the broadband network has the potential to transform Tasmania’s economy. With the network up and running before much of the rest of the country Tasmania should become a magnet for people and businesses wanting to explore new products, applications and business models in the broadband world. In recent times Tasmania has become something of digital laboratory. It’s got the first digital only commercial TV network; hosted the Launceston broadband project; and had the Hobart broadband-over-powerlines experiment.

After decades of being the poor relation, the future looks bright for Tassie. Sure it’s still got issues and problems, but who hasn’t? Like a footy team that has been unsuccessful for a long time, when it surges ahead Tasmania will surprise a lot of people. I’m very confident that is what’s going to happen.

Post a comment

Comments Terms & Conditions

When posting comments on our blogs, you agree to be bound by our terms and conditions.
Comments that are offensive, defamatory, unsuitable or that breach any aspects of the terms and conditions will be deleted.

Recent comments

Jill Ruchel

May 29, 2009

11:50 AM

Lindsay, you are absolutely doing the right thing with the broadband network. Good government takes leadership and vision and this initiative is a perfect example of it. Bold moves always attract criticism. There is never only one way to do things. We cannot be held to ransom by Telstra, and the benefits to Tasmanians and indeed all Australians will be phenomenal. People just don't understand this yet, but in time, they will. I think that the national broadband network decision will be one of the most enduring and important legacies of this government.

benito

May 20, 2009

06:33 PM

Lindsay, it is unhelpful if the same players using the same rules are allowed to own the internet super highway.

One little change could resolve a lot of problems.

Legislate (not regulation) to have all the ISP companies forward a hard copy of the contract agreed upon, to the prospective subscriber.

Too many ISP companies misconstrue the agreement and the subscriber is intimidated into paying non-contractual costs.

Bundling is a case in point. One ISP gave me a cost at $39.95 per month for Phone and internet, and then set about charging me $39.95 for the internet and $29.95 for the phone each month.

This kind of misbehaviour is rife among ISP companies and many people do not complain, even though they know they are being ripped off.

I have changed my ISP many times yet the government has no agency that provides protection from this hideous business practise. Most communication people don't want to know.

Norm

May 20, 2009

05:42 PM

The private sector should build this and take the risks and reap the rewards. The $1 billion should be used to support other infrstructure that the private sector is unwilling to invest in (eg rail). Tasmania can then have both; a win-win scenario.

We look forward to throwing out your government at the next election to stop this sort of debt mismanagement.

Jonathan

May 20, 2009

02:34 PM

I recently visited family in Tasmania and also travelled to some significant tourist world-renowned spots for a week. I found that there was no Optus or Vodafone mobile phone reception in many locations. Also there was no Optus or Vodafone 3G services *anywhere*, not even in Launceston and Hobart. I'm told Telstra provides these, meaning they have a lock-up on advanced mobile services and reach in Tasmania.

From an ROI perspective this makes unfortunate sense, where an established monopoly makes it difficult for others to invest the infrastructure to establish competition, but for an entire state (no matter of size and population, nor the size of the "villages") to have no competition in the provision of key modern services is a blight that needs addressing.

I look forward to seeing a FTTH roll-out that allows all citizens access and the ability to contribute. However there are clearly other first-world service issues that should be addressed in parallel to make sure services taken for granted are accessible.

Pete O'Dwyer

May 20, 2009

01:35 PM

Mr. Tanner and all of the FTH supporters, please stop sidetracking the real issue, by telling us over and over how wonderful fast internet is. No one is disputing the speed and benefits of the optic fiber. What is being disputed is a wisdom of spending 43 billion dollars of the taxpayers� money when there are much cheaper alternatives, particularly considering the vastness of our continent, scarcity of our population and rapidly changing technology. Furthermore could you please enlighten us how setting up new monopoly would benefit competition? Please don�t talk only about the competition in the retail market when the main costs will involve the monopoly infrastructure, where the prices would be determined by the ACCC. Where is competition? You will also have to regulate all other competing technologies, to stop them from competing with the new FTH, otherwise your wonderful project would not be commercially viable? You are setting up an expensive monopoly, killing all competing technologies � in the name of enhancing competition?!!! It is rather amazing that government ministers, with all their expert advisors cant see how flawed the whole project is.

John Dalton

May 19, 2009

10:45 PM

I live in Tasmania, and 18 months ago I quit my office job to work from home for a company in the USA. My skills are useful anywhere in the world, and my job can be done remotely. Rather than live in fear of outsourcing or offshoring, I chose to take advantage of this so that my family and I can enjoy the lifestyle we love down here without compromising on the career front.

Most arguments against the NBN sound to me like people who've never seen a car arguing about the cost of highways. This is a delivery mechanism for all kinds of content - not just internet access, but phone, TV, Radio and a myriad of applications we haven't dreamt of yet.

More importantly, it's not just about applications for consumers. It's about infrastructure that makes more of my kind of work possible in Tasmania, and other types of work that could easily relocate here if they had the necessary bandwidth to collaborate more effectively online throughout the country and the rest of the world.

In my previous job I saw the kinds of videoconferencing and telepresence facilities in use at universities and research institutes today. Now I work from home for a company distributed around the world, with no physical headquarters, and collaborate daily with my coworkers.

To paraphrase William Gibson: "The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed." A FTTP NBN brings Australia a bit closer to the future, and I'm very glad that Tassie's the place where it's going to start. The article has it right - the future looks bright from down here!

Wild William

May 19, 2009

10:34 PM

Our Mr. Tanner could well be correct in his assumptions, yet I don't think he is aware of all the sinister shortcomings and duplicity that is ever the rage in this Tasmanian Labor party.

They be nowt but a cage full of stoats weasels and hoodwinkers!

Wild William

May 19, 2009

10:33 PM

Our Mr. Tanner could well be correct in his assumptions, yet I don't think he is aware of all the sinister shortcomings and duplicity that is ever the rage in this Tasmanian Labor party.

They be nowt but a cage full of stoats weasels and hoodwinkers!

Geoff

May 19, 2009

09:34 PM

Building FTTH in Tasmanian must be the silliest thing I've heard in a long, long time. There is just no demand that could justify such expenditure. There must be a fibre backbone, not fibre to every residence.

Tasmania needs a wireless network that can be accessed by any resident or visitor. Its ideal for wireless access. Such access will attract more visitors. With under 100,000 potential users bandwidth is not an issue.

BlackF

May 19, 2009

05:08 PM

I am a born and bred Tasmanian now in Sweden at the moment. I will just say that Tassie has some great advantages over the mainland but some appalling disadvantages as well.

Lindsay, Have you ever tried to freight something to Tasmania? Talk about disadvantage! Its probably cheaper to ship something from Perth to Port Douglas than it is to send something from Canberra to Hobart. But the freight equalisation debate has been going on for years. Not sure how you would improve the "equalisation" policy?

cheers

The Black One

Nick

May 19, 2009

03:53 PM

I am the exact opposite Matt - raised in Sydney and now living in Tassie. It is a common myth that it is cheaper in Tassie based on one thing only - the cost of housing. Almost every other cost is higher - housing rates, food, petrol, clothing and of course wages are significantly lower (approx 20%). Compounding this the cost of housing rocketed with interstate investors flooding the market (esp when NSW govt tried the additional 2% tax) with no increase in wages. This leads to much of the talent leaving the state for higher incomes in other states and pursue careers which just aren't on offer here.

I afraid all the talk about broadband sounds more like the govt is trying to convince themselves. The rest of us know it is a waste of money we don't have. If the govt was genuine they would listen to the screams of the analysts stating it is not commercially viable. How much do you think people will pay - how much can the 'working Australian' really afford??

"Small population means limited congestion and infrastructure problems compared with the rest of Australia" LT
Currently Tas doesn't have a freight rail network and urgently needs a new hospital thanks to govt neglect. We don't even have dual carriageway on the main highway. We don't have any infrastructure!!

Maybe we should focus our resources away from the bells and whistles and concentate of basic service which the govt is there to provide.

Tassie is wonderful wonderful place to live - we don't need additional manure to make the flowers grow.

doug senwick

May 19, 2009

03:41 PM

It is hard to imagine a region more suited to wireless broadband technology than Tasmania with its low population density and high value conservation areas.

RobertCz

May 19, 2009

03:19 PM

As a PhD graduate who was born in Tas and educated there upto my bachlor's degree, may I remind you of one thing where Tassie's nimble size provided an advantage already in the 70s: we were using IT in school in the mid-70s. I was a member of the computer club at New Town High in 1979, programming on a networked PDP-11 out of Elizabeth Matric (EMC). By the time I got to Uni, punched cards had long since gone the way of the dodo. In this respect, we were doing serious IT stuff well ahead of many schools on the mainland.

Plus, our separation of years 11 and 12 into seperate schools (then called matriculation colleges) meant that we had a critical mass advantage in being able to deliver varied educational programmes. How many of you can say that you had 1200 people in year 11 at school, and another 1200 in year 12? This mean that, at EMC we had the main subjects at multiple levels. There were multiple advanced maths subjects (separate Algebra/Geometry and Analysis/Statistics units).

Tasmania has always been an innovative incubator. (Maybe it's the residual second head.)

By the way, my PhD supervisor, a wunderkind of analytical Accounting research (famous not just in Aus) is also a New Town High old boy.

See, we Tasmanians do kick butt. It's just such a shame that we had to leave the place to fulfil our potential. This is my 21st year in Sydney.

Matt

May 19, 2009

02:48 PM

Now Sydney based, I was brought up in Tassie and over the years I've seen some very dangerous economic 'cases'.

If I understand it right, the Government is spending potentially a couple of million dollars supplying broadband to villages of about 50 people (say 10 families, $2 million / 10 families = $200,000), and advertising this as a benefit?

I'm certain that initiative such as 3G Networks running at high speed would deliver the same thing at a fraction of the cost.

Lots of debt and little result I speculate.

Also Correction to the lead in article. While Yes land costs are lower in Tassie, housing (ie building) costs are much much higher than the mainland. Indeed to build an average 4 bedroom double garage house in Tassie would cost about 50% MORE than in Sydney or Melbourne.

Comments Terms & Conditions

When posting comments on our blogs, you agree to be bound by our terms and conditions.
Comments that are offensive, defamatory, unsuitable or that breach any aspects of the terms and conditions will be deleted.